Giving Up Coffee: Day One

I planned to start my caffeine free life on a Saturday. I didn’t have a bookkeeping job until Tuesday afternoon. Three days should be enough time to detox myself from the effects of caffeine, I reasoned.

To be honest, I don’t remember much of the events of that first day. The headache started around 9:30 AM, dull at first, but ever present. By 10:30 AM, my ears had clogged up and my head felt like it was filling up with water.

My husband asked if I wanted to go to the nursery that morning to pick out some flowers to plant. I asked him to repeat the question because, although I heard the words, my brain hadn’t connected the dots; the fog building up in my head was getting thicker by the minute. I think I said yes, because next thing I realized I was sitting in the front seat of the car. We were moving in slow motion – like a dream.

I know I was walking through the nursery, but I felt like I was swimming underwater. Sounds were muffled, the sun was burning my eyes – even with sunglasses on; the colors of the flowers were too intense to look at directly. My husband kept asking me, “how’s this?” and “maybe these?”

“Yes, fine, anything,” I mumbled. Just get me out of here. At one point, I felt like I could fall asleep standing up – like horses do, so I held on tightly to the wagon and pushed with my arms, dragging my feet behind in a slow-mo shuffle. “Are we done yet?” I kept asking, like some four year old child.

“Wow!” my husband exclaimed on the way home. “Those plants were expensive; don’t you think?”

I heard the question, but my lips wouldn’t move. The part of the brain that controls speech was already asleep, the rest of my body would soon follow. I floated through the front door, not feeling my feet on the ground, and dumped my body into the recliner. My head was buzzing now, the headache was of migraine intensity, my eyes were pin holes trying to focus, there was a slight feeling of nausea in the pit of my stomach and sweat beads were building up around my forehead and upper lip. I gave up, too weak to hunt for the Tylenol, and closed my eyes.

I woke up a few hours later, drool dripping down the side of my mouth, stomach burning from hunger. “Is there an axe stuck in my head?” I asked my husband.

“What?!”

“That’s what it feels like,” I told him. “I feel like there is an axe stuck right through my head.” He ran upstairs to get the Extra-Strength Tylenol and handed me two. I ate lunch and returned to the recliner to sleep away the remainder of Day One off of caffeine. It had to get better tomorrow, I thought.

To Be Continued…